Williams presented issues progressing on campus and others that have remained the same or regressed. One of those issues progressing is the university's undergraduate enrollment of minorities, but Williams will not be happy until UW-Madison is the "national champion."

Nearly a hundred students showed up to hear that and to be put in small groups to come up with specific ideas on assigned diversity subtopics like academic success and campus climate.

Students proposed ideas including giving social action leaders college credit for their volunteer work and changing ethnic studies classes to be purely discussion.

154 comments:

This is why I no longer give money to my alma mater. My donations will be pissed away on another Vice Provost of Climate and Diversity while the administration laments the ever-climbing cost of education and lack of support from the state.

This reminds me of the housing bubble. "I want us to be the champion of getting people into houses." So a lot of people got a lot of what looked like cheap can't lose loans. Now they're in a heap of hurt.

In [the book] Hitler & His God, Van Vrekhem goes into considerable detail about the "volkisch movement" that was a big part of the appeal of Nazism -- or which Nazism co-opted, to be precise. At the root of this movement was the idea that Christianity was a foreign influence superimposed on a much deeper reservoir of primitive beliefs. Christianity unifies people through a common belief system, but "volk" indicates "a tribal unity of blood, unmodified by ideas of a common humanity. Religious in the intensity of their beliefs, volkists had had no real equivalent in other Western nations."

The concept is especially difficult for normal (non-leftist) Americans to comprehend, being that we are the first nation explicitly created around abstract and universal principles instead of more primitive modes of blood, soil, mythology, etc. But here again, we can see how the modern doctrine of multiculturalism is in reality a quite primitive reversion back to earlier ways of life. Multiculturalism is specifically a rejection of American principles, what with its obsession with blood and race instead of ideas. This is why when you criticize Obama's ideas, they accuse you of being a racist.

"I hear so much of the pain from students, faculty or staff...People look at me differently because I am x, y or z."

Faculty? Really? I can believe students maybe, who aren't very mature yet, but faculty?

I'm sorry. People are too damn sensitive. Someone looks at you differently? Why the hell do you care? You shouldn't. And if you're that sensitive, have you ever considered the possibilty that you are imagining it?

Williams presented issues progressing on campus and others that have remained the same or regressed. One of those issues progressing is the university's undergraduate enrollment of minorities, but Williams will not be happy until UW-Madison is the "national champion."

I had a religion/mythology class in college where the professor had basically turned the entire curriculum into a Men's Studies class. He had us split up into groups one day and make lists of "male traits" and "female traits." It was impossible for us to take it seriously. We were writing down things like "Toilet Seats Up" and "Toilet Seats Down."

He also was teaching about things like Star Wars and how it related to mythology. He was a real doofus, poor thing.

The problem is, that the Liberal Arts majors will administer the school or the Department of Education, not the Engineers or Hard Scientists, and so they will discover themselves at the mercy of this sort of “thinking” anyway.

Worth every penny spent on those students the Prof., materials, space, administration, communications, and time.

Without students spending their time like this, how else can a business expect to hire college educated employees for close to minimum wage.

Thanks University, for breaking them financially and forcing them to work for me. Of course they have to start below my less educated employees who have actual skills, but college makes sure that my low skilled jobs have plenty of potential applicants.

They learn diversity real well when they get a job under someone who only finished the 8th grade and who's first language is not English. That's equality in action baby.

Also, UW-Madison really needs to do something about that weather. It's very Scandi-centric. During entire seasons, all you can see is white, white, cold, frigid white. The sort of weather designed by blond men and women with pale skin.

@Lincolntf: Just hope his application essay was entitled "The Diversity of Our Climate" or "Climatic Diversity and You".

The application required him to write on two specific topics and I was blown away by his first drafts. I hoped that he would at least mention that he was the child of two black immigrants but he didn't.

"I hear so much of the pain from students, faculty or staff... People look at me differently because I am x, y or z."

If we lived in an ethnically homogeneous country like Korea or Japan, these same idiots would be desperate to be seen differently.

This kind of prioritizing of time and resources has a directly proportional relationship to the amount of academic insulation one has from the real world, or, alternatively, to the height of your tower and the quality of it's ivory.

1. The University of Wisconsin values an educational environment that provides all members of the campus community with opportunities to grow and develop intellectually, personally, culturally, and socially. In order to give us a more complete picture of you as an individual, please tell us about the particular life experiences, perspectives, talents, commitments and/or interests you will bring to our campus. In other words, how will your presence enrich our community?

2. Tell us about your academic goals, circumstances that may have had an impact on your academic performance, and, in general, anything else you would like us to know in making an admission decision.

I was hoping that he would work the angles but nowhere did he mentioned that he was a disadvantaged minority.

Isn't the intended purpose of college to make you part of the elite, above and separate from the masses. To be more affluent and sophisticated so that you don't have to squat with diversity face to face. Maybe you study it so that you know what to avoid when you get your degree.

In order to give us a more complete picture of you as an individual, please tell us about the particular life experiences, perspectives, talents, commitments and/or interests you will bring to our campus.

I think I would have to reply with:

How about you tell me what your institution has to offer me in terms of preparing me to become a productive member of society? That is far more important than whether my presence will have some intangible impact on making your student body feel good about themselves.

Why don't they just be more accurate and shorten it to Vice Provost for PC Bullshit?

Diversity, as defined by race, ethnicity, national origin, etc, in and of itself has no innate virtue. Diversity of thought, experience and ideas has some value as it brings different perspectives to problem solving. But, you can get that without necessarily having a multitude of different races and nationalities.

It is the focus on this sort of thing rather than making the educational offerings better in terms of what is taught and learned that keeps the U.S. lagging and slipping internationally. Being in a classroom full of "diverse" people won't make me a better engineer, but learning the principles of engineering better and being able to apply those principles more creatively will. That has nothing to do with diversity.

"Students proposed ideas including giving social action leaders college credit for their volunteer work and changing ethnic studies classes to be purely discussion."

I think all students, especially "ethnic" students, should be issued a diploma upon matriculation. I think all "social action leaders" should be given an advanced degree. I think the University of Wisconsin is comical.

It's intersting that the terms "climate" and "diversity" are tell-tale buzzwords to describe the progressive or leftist ideology of obtaining "equality" not for opportuntiy, but of material possessions.

Contrast that with words such as "freedom" and "liberty" often used by conservatives to describe freedom and liberty.

When I was in grad school, I once went to see the head of Pepsi EMEA . One of the many foreign nationals in my program asked him about diversity. He said - by 2005, 50% of our workforce in the US will be diverse.

"The Wisconsin Idea holds that the boundaries of the university should be the boundaries of the state, and that the research conducted at UW–Madison should be applied to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state."

This sounds like UW should limit it's student poulation to state residents. Therefore the demographic breakdown of students should mirror that of the state:

The idea that students shoudn't sometimes sit around discussing solutions to problems, in almost any context, is absurd. That's precisely what students do today at certain points, in hard science 'classes' (discussion groups with a teacher's assistant actually at UW) as well as the academic dander that is film studies, for example.

Should these students sit around and figure out different solutions to problems arising in the various drinking games they make up?

Of course.

Should these students sit around and figure out solutions to the problems minorites face?

Of course, as that is obviously there wont.

The answer to bad speech ("people hate you/me because we're a minority and they are evil bigots") is more speech ("bullshit, you're just another student and your race is 99% irrelevent to your peers, the staff, and the faculty so BUCK UP and quit with the childish victimism of imagined despair").

Also, jealousy of Damon Williams salary won't reduce it. I think most of the carping is because his hustle is better than yours.

Also, jealousy of Damon Williams salary won't reduce it. I think most of the carping is because his hustle is better than yours.

Damn right I'm jealous of his salary.

But, I've made a few bucks on that scam over the years.

I've done and re-done the great on-line diversity course probably a dozen times in my career. Same shit rehashed every time. When you put the ideas in actual writing, the diversity biz is worth about four paragraphs, barely a full page.

My nephew is Italian-Irish and has dark, long, curly hair. He could be taken for a young Arab or Hispanic. Recenltly, he and his family were amused when they saw his picture was used in a mailing by his college alma mater in an obvious attempt to show its diversity.

Also, his more white looking buddies get PO'ed when they get the extra screening at airports and my nephew does not.

On December 21, 2010, The United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted preliminary approval to the Settlement. On December 8, 2010, President Obama signed legislation approving the Settlement and authorizing $3.4 billion in funds.

How about starting by requiring the same basic academic requirements of all regardless of race, sex, legacy, income or even if the student is an athlete?

The voters of the State of California already did that. They passed a referendum banning this crap, but it didn't do a bit of good.

The administrators at the state colleges resorted to ruses to identify their victim classes, primarily by asking applicants to write a weepy essay and identify themselves as belonging to a victim class.

Meade: I know you voiced support, but was hoping maybe your taunts about attending the meeting were just to drum up a vocal opposition? Since I'm in Monona, I didn't really figure it was my fight that evening.

You got a share of that "free money" slushing around the city coffers like every other special interest? Congratulations! I guess Garage Mahal was right that Tea Partiers only oppose spending that doesn't directly benefit them.

Pogo: Your mistake in sending your child to private school. Much better to choose the shittiest most crime ridden school district and send your kid there. she would have perfect scores, be top of the class and would doubtless be admitted immediately, especially if she were coy about which "ethnic" group she was a member of.

My senior son, a white boy beyond the pale, top third of his private HS class, good ACT score, AP classes, acting, singing, blah blah blah, was put on a deferred list.

The letter said the criteria for acceptance included diversity. A buncha the girls in his class got in though. All white.

What do you suppose I told him?

I would tell him that he probably didn't work nearly as hard as those girls did.

Yes, K-12 is rigged for girls. These days, it is taught for girls. More credit for busy work (aka homework) and more bonding exercises (aka group projects).

But one of the big problems that undergraduate education is facing today is that their girls are better qualified than their boys, and as a result, they have to discriminate in favor of the boys, and against the girls, to keep the ratio from going too far female, because at that point, the schools start to lose desirability.

We saw just the opposite problem from what you seem to have - colleges routinely accepting boys who had slightly lower qualifications than the girls who got rejected.

Of course, I would suggest that the gender affirmative action is justified to compensate for the discrimination that the boys faced in K-12. And, how diverse would a student body be, if 2/3 of its members were of one sexual classification?

If they want diversity, they should admit more males. Aren’t women tipping over the 50% mark at most universities these days?

And that is by giving males preference in admissions.

A lot of colleges right now think that there is some magic number of 55% or so as an upper limit for females, above which desirability of the school crashes. This is for general/liberal arts type schools. Different of course for nursing, education, etc.

I think that the idea, from the girls' point of view, is that if there are too many girls, and too few girls, they won't be able to find a boyfriend, or, that the pressure will be to do so through sexual favors. And that appears to greatly increase the pressure for them to put out for the few decent guys around in order to snag one, at least for the night.

And, no, I am not making this up. I have talked to enough girls going through the college admissions process, and they watch that ratio carefully. Much more than the guys do - I remember how jealous we were of one of the guys in HS who got an acting scholarship at a girls school because they needed male leads. And, no, he wasn't anywhere close to gay, at least not until he had spent 4 years in such an environment. Don't know after that.

I'm confused. The state of Wisconsin is 6 percent Black but UW Madison is only 3 percent Black. Yet the university claims that it supports diversity and affirmative action to overcome past injustices. It almost looks like one of those "not in my backyard" things. Could my data be wrong?

Rabel: Your data is not wrong. The good white people of Wisconsin and the good liberal white people of Madison, Wisconsin very much are in favor of the idea of diversity. Teaching diversity, actually. Talking about diversity, actually.The idea of diversity, actually.

I am a racial minority in the city in which I dwell. I get along fine with the majority race and they get along fine with me. We are diverse on stilts. Someone from the state of Wisconsin visited me not too long ago and stayed in a hotel and was quick to remark to me that there were certainly a lot of African Americans afoot. He wondered if perhaps there was a convention or some other gathering of African Americans. Lefties from Wisconsin crack me up. They know shit about "diversity."

My son's at the UW now, and hasn't run into too much of this aggravation yet (just wait 'til that newsletter gets up and running?!?). He did dryly note, however, that while a semester abroad does not fulfill the "ethnic studies" requirement, a course in Asian dance does.

Either his PR people are over reaching or he has an enormously inflated sense of self.

I was amused that he is a "principle" in his own consulting firm. I did not know that one could be a "A basic truth, law, or assumption" (thefreedictionary.com). I guess one can attain that status by being a, "consummate scholar/administrator/thought leader".

beevalo: thank you for the link to this pompous asshole's linkedin song to himself. We note with interest that it is illiterate with subjects and verbs going their own way. What a travesty, what a revelation.

We solved this problem this year by applying for admittance at a Historically Black College.

The grade requirements are very low. Like SAT: Critical Thinking – 430/Math - 400 and a GPA of 2.3.

We figure our daughter will be able to test out of about 3 years of tuition fees, graduate Summa and, since the state has a guaranteed transfer and acceptance of degrees from one state school to another in-state college, go to the grad school of her choice - Georgia Tech where she can finally get into the actual classes that she will need to become successful.

I know I'm very LTTP here, but I had to chime in on a couple of things:

Is it awkward for you, Althouse, when you mock a colleague?

I'm not sure that a professor should consider the Vice Provost of anything as a "colleague." Non-teaching administrators are hardly on the same page as actual teachers in terms of fulfilling the original mission of the school; many times, they're even working at cross purposes.

I'm a RedHeaded-American. Lord knows we've been abused. Beaten, even.

I'm glad someone brought up the redhead thing, because I've often wondered how it is that one physical trait--skin color, in the case of this nation--was designated as trumping all else. (And you can say, "Well, our ancestors did it," but my response would be that our ancestors were idiots, and we're not obligated to continue in their idiocy. If our ancestors jumped off a cliff, etc...

But I've often wondered what would have happened if another physical trait had been chosen to reign supreme, and red hair came to mind. What would the history of America have looked like if our ancestors had made this equally ridiculous decision?